A long explanation of a damned fine joke.

Here’s a good joke:

“Why do programmers always mix up Christmas and Halloween.  Because Dec 25 is Oct  31”

Get it?  If you do, then you should probably stop reading here because this is likely to be old news to you.  If you’d like to know why it’s so damned funny, and learn a little computing basics for good measure, read on!

If you’re not a programmer, you (hopefully!) recognise the abbreviations for December 25th (Dec 25) and October 31st (Oct 31), and (hopefully!!) recognise them as Christmas and Halloween.  So far, so good, but not very funny – even to a programmer.

To a programmer, the abbreviations ‘Dec 25’ and ‘Oct 31’ can also mean something entirely different.  Dec 25 is an abbreviation for “Decimal 25” and “Oct 31” is an abbreviation for “Octal 31”, and for reasons that I’d like to explain, these are exactly the same thing.

To see why, let’s start at looking at the normal decimal number system – the number system we use in day-to-day life.  Decimal is simply a way of counting – or more precisely, of representing, numbers – in blocks of ten.  In day-to-day use we use the arabic numerals 0 through to 9 to represent the English numbers “zero” through to “nine”.  After nine, we start counting in units of ten, so ten is 10, eleven is 11, twelve is 12 and so forth.  After ninety-nine, we start with another block of 10, so hundred is 100, one-hundred and one is 101 and so on and so forth.

This is, of course, fairly elementary stuff – it’s the kind of thing we’re all taught in primary school.  As an aside, this, unfortunately, is also one of those things that everyone knows so instinctively that they stop thinking about how numbers work.  10 is ten. 12 is twelve, and that’s all there is to it.  It’s so ingrained that it’s easy to forget what an inspiration the arabic numbering system actually is and how out of kilter with our actual counting system it is.

Okay, so when we say “twenty five”, we write out the arabic numerals 2 and 5, representing 2 x 10 + 5.  When we say “thirty one”, we do the same thing: 3 x 10 + 1.

But why stop at 10?  Why should the arabic numerals ’31’ necessarily represent the number thirty-one.  What if – for reasons that I will shortly explain – I want each column to represent a multiple of a different number?  What if I wanted each column to represent multiples of 8?

There is absolutely nothing stopping us from doing that, and that is precisely what Octal is.  In Octal, the numbers zero through to seven are represented in the normal way: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7.  When we get to eight though, things get slightly skewed.  Eight in Octal is represented by the arabic numerals 10.  Remember, each column is representing multiples of eight, not multiples of ten; so 10 is Octal is 1 x 8 + 0 – Eight.  And we carry on from there: nine is 11, ten is 12, eleven is 13, and so forth 20 is sixteen, and 31 is 3 x 8, which is 24, plus 1 which gives us twenty five.

(Incidentally, I bet you’re reading that and your mind is reading it as, “so ten is [twelve], eleven is [thirteen] and so forth.  Try to think of each arabic numeral as an independent figure: “so ten is [one, two], eleven is [one, three]”)
So that’s the joke in a nutshell:  to a programmer, the number represented by the arabic numerals ’25’ (two, five) in decimal is the same as the number represented by the arabic numerals ’31’ (three, one) in octal, because 2 x 10 + 5 is the same as 3 x 8 + 1.  It’s simply an amusing coincidence that, to the programmer, Dec can mean both “December” and “Decimal”, and Oct can mean both “October” and “Octal”; and that Dec 25 is just happily, and coincidentally, Oct 31.

But that’s not a truly satisfying answer; the obvious question is why would anybody want to do that?  What’s the point? If 10 is “ten”, then why would anyone find any use in 10 being “eight”?  We all have ten fingers, it’s easy to count in tens, so why change things and count in eights?

The answer lies in how computers store numbers.  Computers, you see, don’t count in tens.  Computers count in “on” and “off”.

This will be the subject of part II

Matt Nisbett farts again.

Oh dear, it appears that Matt Nisbett has had another little accident.  He appears to have farted again.

Several scientist authors and pundits, led by the biologist Richard Dawkins (2006), argue that the implications of evolutionary science undermine not only the validity of religion but also respect for all religious faith. Their claims help fuel the conflict frame in the news media, generating journalistic frame devices that emphasize “God vs. Science,” or “Science versus religion.” These maverick communicators, dubbed “The New Atheists,” also reinforce deficit model thinking, consistently blaming conflict over evolution on public ignorance and irrational religious beliefs.

Dawkins, you see, is now a maverick communicator, with all the negative connotations that are supposed to go with that phrase.  The fact that Richard Dawkins is arguably one of the most prominent and successful authors on modern evolutionary biology, and – entirely unlike Nisbett – a highly respected author, is not enough to save him from Nisbetts desulutory remark that he is merely a maverick communicator.   According to Nisbett, if you cast doubt on religious faith, you’re a maverick (small ‘m’ please.  Big ‘M’s are reserved for failed Rebulican presidential candidates) communicator.  Bollocks Nisbett.

Suprisingly, Nisbett actually initially allowed some comments on his blog (his is one of very few on Science Blogs that moderates comments for approval) which were almost universally negative.  It took him a while to respond to any one, but eventually he posted a comment, which started with this statement:

I think many objections are clearly addressed in the text of the chapter excerpt or in past articles I have published on framing.

The word “clearly” has a meaning.  I don’t think it means what he thinks it means.  If the objections of the overwhelming majority of people commenting on his spiel were addressed “in the text of the chapter excerpt or in past articles”, then he’s not communicating clearly – which one should imagine would be a problem for someone touting themselves as a communications expert.

He continues:

For example, I explicitly note that as a social critic and pundit, there is nothing unethical about Dawkins expressing his personal opinions about religion.

A statement that I think most normal people can agree with.  Unfortunately, I’m not sure Nisbett is normal.  Consider:

Yet when Dawkins and other New Atheists also use the trust granted them as scientists to argue that religion is a scientific question, that science undermines even respect for religious publics, they employ framing unethically,

A normal person would most likely interpret this as a direct contradiction.  Dawkins is entitled to write about his own personal views, but because he is a trusted scientist (Ha!  Has Nisbett never heard of Ken Ham or William Dembski?) it is unethical for him to do so.

Nisbett would appear to have closed comments on that post now.  His next comment (with no intervening comments from his first) starts, “Some commenters”.  Some of those commenter commented after his first post – I know, I was one.  I called him out for the lying sack he is.

Why is Nisbett a lying sack?  Consider this:

The conflict narrative is powerfully employed in the 2008 anti-evolution documentary Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. By relying almost exclusively on interviews with outspoken atheist scientists such as Dawkins and the blogger PZ Myers, Expelled reinforces the false impression that evolution and faith are inherently incompatible and that scientists are openly hostile to religion.

If you’re not familiar with the story behind Expelled, you may not immedeatly see why this is not just a lie, it is bordering on libel against PZ Myers and Richard Dawkins.  I haven’t seen the film, but as I do know the story behind those interviews, and to say they were heavily cut and what made the final film would appear to be a gross understatement.Nisbett then goes on to describe the film as an attack on atheistic science, and how awful it is, and how much damage Richard Dawkins and PZ Myers have done to the integrity of science in the US, finishing off with:

By the end of its spring 2008 run in theaters, Expelled ranked as one of the top grossing public affairs documentaries in U.S. history.

In truth, Expelled was a disaster.  It was a complete and utter failure.  Nisbett here is lying.  Oh, I have no doubt whatsoever that when pushed he will say something along the lines of “it was the highest grossing public affairs documentary in Spring 2008, so long as one only includes April 2nd, somewhere around lunch-time, and limits the category of ‘public affairs documentary’ to ‘Expelled’, therefore I’m not technically lying”, but the simple fact is that Nisbett is a professor of communications – he knows full well that the impression he wants to impart with his words is – to be as generous as I possibly can be – only in the most strict sense backed by the facts.  But the new expert on ethics that is Matt Nisbett ought to know that a lie by ommission is a lie.

Nisbett is a liar.

“The Atheist Insult”

Oh, this is just too good.  More religious people whinging that the Atheists dared to put out an advert.  To be fair, this guy doesn’t like adverts.  He really doesn’t like adverts:

Adverts are by their very nature offensive. Whether they are printed, pop up on computer screens or play out on radio or TV, they are irritating invasions on private space that seek to bully and bombard people with pernicious consumerist messages.

Bear in mind that this is clearly the benchmark this guy is using for adverts: they’re offensive by default.  So to write a whole article on why the atheit bus campaign is so evil, he must really hate it.  And he does:

But what if the ideology urged by the advert really, really offends you? What if it challenges the core beliefs that fundamentally form the way you live?

Can you guess who’s about to magically become offended by a viewpoint expressed on the side of a bus?  A viewpoint, incidentally, that does not incite and does not accuse.  It does not express the view that people who disagree with the sentiment of the advert are evil, or that people who disagree should be punished.  It simply promotes the view that, “There probably is no god”.  Simple.

I can understand this guys confusion though:

With their marketing scheme, the Atheist Bus Campaign sought not to sell a product, but a particular point of view

I’m guessing that James hasn’t lived through many local or national government elections. But then James starts getting weird:

[There's probably no God] Is a pretty bold statement to make. Though it stops short of saying “God does not exist,” the idea put forward is that there is no cosmic entity overseeing the universe. But how can you know?

Erm, James, it says, “There’s probably no God”.  Perhaps you should have spent more time reading it than being offended by it.

Maybe a divine being does have a role in such issues, and that comes down to your own personal beliefs and how you think the universe works. Personally, I very much believe that there are “paranormal” beings beyond our mundane human order out there and I reckon that there are spiritual energies and forces at work around us. As such, as someone who believes that godly beings exist, I’m definitely affronted by the Atheist Bus Campaign.

So James believes that there are paranormal beings beyond our mundane human order (whatever the fuck that’s supposed to mean), but is strangely affronted by the Atheist Bus Campaign?  James, you’re views are weird.  They make no sense.  Yet strangely, I can read them without being offended.  I fundamentally disagree with you – and, incidentally, would like to see the proof you demand from the atheist with respect to your beliefs – but I am not affronted by having seen them.  Why do people with weird beliefs have such difficulty making this distinction?

In fact, I’d go so far as to say that the advert isn’t nice at all and is, in fact, a pretty damn nasty bit of text

James thinks this is nasty? I wonder what evidence he’s going to produce to make the association that, “There’s probably no God, now stop worrying and enjoy life” is nasty.  That’s one hell of an accusation, James.

The average commuter could be plunged into an existential crisis and find themselves contemplating life much more than they intended to on their Monday morning journey to work.

OMFG! It’s going to cause and existential CRISIS. EVERYBODY PANIC!!!!111 one!1.

James, of course, places himself above “Joe the commuter” of course, and doesn’t experience this existential crisis: he simply goes straight to “offended”. Do not pass god, do not collect £200.

For those that believe in God or, indeed gods, the advert is even more of a kick to the psyche. It sticks out as a personal insult to those who pay reverence to a deity and dutifully follow a spiritual schema by basically saying: “You are wrong”.

OMFG! Someone is wrong on teh religions. (sorry).  EXISTENTIAL CRISIS!!!

it’s actually a noxious sermon that seeks to stigmatise a significant section of society. The campaign is preaching prejudice rather than peace of mind.

James, have you been following the teachings of the various religions lately?  Do you really want to get into the whole “my sermon is more obnoxious than your sermon” debate?  Seriously. Don’t go there.  You can’t win.  Unless, of course, you actually meant to use the word “noxious”.  In which case this could get real messy real quick.

At a gut level, religion is once again represented as a bloody great bugbear that brings hatred and malice; the preserve of superstitious simpletons, delusional traditionalists andfundamentalist loonies.

What did that sign say again, James?  “There probably is no God, now stop worrying and get on with your life”.  Did it mention religion?

Religion can do remarkable things – and has done so repeatedly. To simplistically state that “Religion is evil” is like saying “Fire gives people third-degree burns.”

James, once again who is making these accusations?  The Atheist Bus Campaign didn’t.  You are the only person in your article making these associations.  Perhaps that says more about your own attitude to the gods and religion than it does about the atheist.

Sexist rubbish

I’m writting this whilst watching the University Challenge final I started writing this whilst watching UC, but failed dismally to ignore the gripping final! This is the usual Daily Mail sexist trite:

Before reaching the grand final – to be screened tonight – her team trounced Exeter University 350-15, a victory described by host Jeremy Paxman as ‘less like a general knowledge quiz and more like a cull’.

But, rather than celebrating Miss Trimble’s success, many viewers have subjected her to vicious abuse. Some experts say this behaviour exposes the sinister hostility to brainpower in our dumbed-down, celebrity-obsessed age.

While some have praised the 26-year-old as ‘very sexy with a gorgeous smile’, others call her ‘a hateful know-it-all’ and an ‘ annoying bitch’.

So she’s either “very sexy with a gorgeous smile”, or a “hateful know-it-all and an annoying bitch”?  Could it not be possible that she’s actually very fucking smart? The outrageous sexism that pervades the Mail comes through in this piece in buckets:

They have taken particular exception to her saying ‘Oh, well done’, ‘Of course’ and ‘Quite’ to her teammates.

One said she was a ‘horse-toothed snob’ who ‘ruins University Challenge every time she is on it with her “better than thou” attitude’.

Another said Miss Trimble was ’so brain-rupturingly irritating and smug’ that they hoped science would come up with ‘a screen that you can reach through and punch those inside’.

‘She could easily win University Challenge on her own, but I get the feeling she may well celebrate alone as well.’

So she’s smart, she does her job as the Captain of the team, and she has the temerity to be female?  Yeah, there’s nothing sexist going on here.  “Smart women dine alone”? Give me a break.

And their clincher?

Her breadth of general knowledge is truly impressive but when it comes to the kind of questions regularly posed in pub quizzes, gaps in Gail Trimble’s knowledge appear.

A series of questions put to her by The Sun newspaper left her stumped. Here they are….

1) Who won the Brit Award for Best Female last week?

Gail: ‘I don’t know’

2) What was the name of the 13-year-old dad whose story was broken by The Sun and caused a global storm?

Gail: ‘I read the article, but I can’t remember the boy’s name.’

3) What is the name of the British lead actor in the Oscar-nominated film, Slumdog Millionaire?

Gail: ‘I have no idea.’

4) Who is the new manager of Chelsea FC?

Gail: ‘I don’t know.’

5) Who won the most recent series of Celebrity Big Brother?

Gail: ‘I don’t know. These aren’t academic questions.’

If you, too, are stumped then here are the answers.

1: Duffy. 2: Alfie Patten. 3: Dev Patel. 4: Guus Hiddink. 5: Ulrika Jonsson.

On a good day, I will get may be 5-10 questions right on University Challenge.  And by good day, I mean phenomenaly good day.  I would not be able to answer a single one of the Sun’s questions as quoted by the Daily Mail.  I can only imagine what conclusions the Sun would make of that.

Congrats though to Corpus Christi Cambridge.  And f*ck you Daily Mail.

Jeni Barnett looses the internets.

Until a few days ago I’d never heard of Jeni Barnett.  But now she has had her name plastered all over the internet as an excellent example of How To Loose The Internets.

Briefly, Jeni Barnett is a radio and television broadcaster who hosted a three-hour phone-in broadcast stating that vaccines cause autism.  Ben Goldacre at BadScience.net caught wind of it and used a 40-minute clip of the show to play a quick game of Bad Science Bingo.  Normally this would have been left at that, and life would continue as normal, and most people outside of London would have remained blissfully unaware as to who Jeni Barnett was and how woefully ill-informed she is on the current state of vaccine research.  Unfortunately it didn’t end there.

LBC – the company who pays Jeni to broadcast to Londoners - decided to send in the lawyer attack-dogs to Ben Goldacre claiming copyright infringement on the clip he’d posted on his blog.

Now whether you agree with the lawyers or not, this is a monumentally dumb thing to do.  Ben Goldacre is an extremely popular blogger, and his posts regarding the piss-poor state of science journalism in the UK is both frightening and enlightening in equal measures.

Can you guess what happened?

The clip in quesion is now on Wikileaks, and pretty much every corner of the internet.  It is now being discussed in everything from the most obscure blog (which I think is officially this one) to the most popular.  Pretty much everyone with the most vaguest interest in good science is now aware of LBC and Jeni Barnett.

And do you think it stops there?

Does it hell.  Ms Barnett later decided that she was only interested in a health debate, and posted a comment to this effect on her blog, whilst calling Ben a “Bad Scientist”.  As she’d invited comment, people – informed people – commented.  Of course, being interested in debate, she removed the comments and closed comments on her blog.

Whoops.

The comments are freely available here.

Jeni Barnett: EPIC FAIL,

So this is what poverty must be like

Just in case you thought the banking crisis wasn’t bad enough, maybe you should spare a moment for these poor folks who are facing imminent abject poverty.  Bankers:

Five hundred thousand dollars — the amount President Obama wants to set as the top pay for banking executives whose firms accept government bailout money — seems like a lot, and it is a lot. To many people in many places, it is a princely sum to live on. But in the neighborhoods of New York City and its suburban enclaves where successful bankers live, half a million a year can go very fast.

Aww shucks, that sounds bad.  But wait, it’s worse!

As hard as it is to believe, bankers who are living on the Upper East Side making $2 or $3 million a year have set up a life for themselves in which they are also at zero at the end of the year with credit cards and mortgage bills that are inescapable

Which probably explains why the economy in America and the UK has tanked.  If you can’t balance a $2-3 million annual salary – plus bonuses, don’t forget the cash bonuses – I don’t think you’re in any position to run a bank.

WTF?

Can we please, at last, agree that the catholic church is run by morons?  Cite

Last year he claimed that the “gay lobby” attends Holocaust memorials “to create for themselves the image of a group of people under persecution.”

This is the utterances of one Joseph Devine, the Bishop of Motherwell.  Clearly a basic education in history is unnecessary – and presumably an impediment – to advancement in the hierarchy of the Catholic Church.  For the history impaired: homosexuals were sent to concentration – and extermination – camps under the Nazi regime.

They were persecuted then by the Nazis, and they continue to be persecuted mostly by religious organisations such as the Catholic Church who – apparently – believe that gay rights extend solely to peadophile priests.

Fuck the Catholic Church.

This is really stupid

Only read if you have a strong head for irony:

http://post-darwinist.blogspot.com/2009/01/year-of-darwin-dawns-loud-and.html

The real war on Christmas

Don’t try to grow Christmas trees under artificial lights, you dope smoking terrorist:

KopBusters rented a house in Odessa, Texas and began growing two small Christmas trees under a grow light similar to those used for growing marijuana.

You can guess what happened next.

On presumed consent.

I am a big supporter of the idea of “presumed consent” when it comes to organ donation and I am frequently baffled when I hear the arguments of those people who are against the idea.  I can’t fathom it.  The two systems basically boil down to this: under the current “opt-in” system, a person who dies, and whose organs are suitable for donation, must have provided prior consent before the organs in his cadaver can be used for transplantation.  That consent can be challenged by relatives, and directly over-ruled even where clear consent has been given.  Under presumed consent, a person is presumed to have given consent, unless they explicitly register their lack of consent.  The family of the deceased may not overule the presumption of consent, but neither may they overall the explicit lack of consent.

Normally I expect the opposition to presumed consent to come from the more fundamental religious folk.  I would imagine that to most atheists, the idea that a cadaver has any intrinsic value would be self-evidently nonsense.  So I was suprised when I came across this letter (search for “Fairbairns”) in the National Secular Society Newsline e-mail, by one Zoë Fairbairns:

It’s not just religious people who are opposed to “presumed consent” on organ donation. There are good secular and humanist arguments for insisting that our bodies belong to us rather than to the government – the same arguments which are made for free choice on abortion and assisted suicide.

I am terribly confused by this statement, “our bodies belong to us ….”.  How can a body – a corpse – belong to itself.  A corpse is not a person.  A corpse has no legal rights. A corpse cannot own anything.  Forget about any arguments about free choice on abortion or assisted suicide, or any nonsense about the government owning human transplant organs, one thing is abundantly clear: a corpse does not belong to a dead person.  The arguments regarding abortion and assisted suicide in this case are utterly irrelevant: those are arguments being made by the living.

We’re told that two-thirds of British people support presumed consent. Fine. Let them carry donor cards, and their consent will be — quite correctly — presumed. No doubt they are all carrying cards already. If they are not, the sincerity of their support must surely be questioned. Perhaps they only support it for other people?

Presumed consent changes one thing, and one thing only: who is required to register a wish with respects to organ donation.  Under the present system, everyone who would like their organs to be donated after their death needs to inform people, and ideally needs to carry a card, or be on the NHS organ donor register.  Under presumed consent, only those who do not want to be donors need bother explain to anyone why, or to register this wish on a register. Ms Fairbanks seems to want to place the burden on the majority, rather than the minority.  And she accuses the medical practitioners of arrogance.

An article entitled Organ Donation – an Outline for General Practitioners, published in 2002 by the Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) makes clear that surgeons removing organs for donation frequently anaesthetise the “corpse” – suggesting that they are aware of the risk that it may not be a corpse at all. The article is available online.

This is a real clanger.  I mean this is beyond stupid.  From the quoted link:

Those members of the public who read media reports on medical matters will remember some controversy reported on this activity. It is more or less standard practice for anaesthetic agents to be used during organ retrieval.

The logic behind this will escape those who say ‘if the donor is dead, why is an anaesthetic needed – and if he’s not dead, you should not be doing this.’ The difficult truth, as stated by the anaesthetists and surgeons, is that the cadaver may retain some reflex movement that hinders the smooth retrieval of organs and makes the transplant surgeon’s work difficult. The use of muscle relaxants, for example, helps the process. The reasons have been well argued by the College of Anaesthetists, and, for the time being, have been generally accepted by the profession.

Does Zoë really believe that when people die, they just suddenly go limp like they do in the movies?  I’m only a lowly computer programmer, and I knew what I was about to read before I even clicked on the link.  So she lied.  She’s trying to make a secular case against presumed consent and she lied.  And I personally think she lies again:

I used to carry a donor card, but the RCGP article, coupled with the terrifying arrogance behind the notion of “presumed consent” has made me tear it up. As the sole proprietor of my body, I will certainly opt out of any “presumed consent” system. I hope I will not be required to fabricate a religious reason for this.

She used to carry a donor card, but read that anaesthetics are used during organ removal (and then failed to read the rest of the paragraph), and she didn’t like presumed consent being discussed (even though it wouldn’t have affected her personal choice in any way) and threw her card away.  Surely, though, if she was an ex-organ donor, mere discussion of other forms of providing consent wouldn’t change her mind that organ donation was a good thing. I hope she remembered to remove her name from the Organ Donor register…

Zoë is not going to be the sole proprietor of her corpse when she is dead.  She is entitled to every say over her body while she is still alive, but once she’s dead it’s game over. She will not be able to own anything, because she will be dead.  Just as I or you will not be able to own anything once we are dead.  Sure discussions can be made about who does own it (the deceased’s family would be a better – although far from ideal – choice), but arguing that the dead can own their bodies is ludicrous.

As a side-note.  If you are in the UK and would like to ensure your organs are donated after your death, please remember to add your details to the organ donor register.  Details here.